Oh, for the days of real entrepreneurs who mortgaged their homes to finance their own company, to realize their dream of making widgets of their own design.
Having backed several Kickstarter projects, I do so with crossed fingers and some hope. Kickstarter is a novel and useful idea, but people who are playing with other people’s money never act the same way as people who are playing with their own, in any sphere of life. People behind Kickstarter projects, and people who have taken put loans and mortgaged their homes to bring a project to fruition, may both sincerely say, if the project is behind schedule, that “we are doing all we can”, but you can bet that those playing with other people’s money will be doing a lot less of it than the guy who will lose his home if the project fails. It’s just human nature.
Example, Jobs and Wozniak:
“To buy supplies to create the first products for sale, Wozniak sold his HP 65 Calculator for $500 and Jobs sold his VW bus for $750. With that working capital, a design for the product and a plan to sell units for $50 each, they expected to clear $700 after costs. On April 1st 1976 they drew up a partnership agreement for Apple Computer.
The audience at the Homebrew Computer club was not impressed when the Jobs and Wozniak presented their first printed circuit boards, but one person stayed afterwards to talk for a while. Paul Terrell had three computer stores and visions of building a national chain.
Jobs followed up with Terrell the next day. But Terrell wanted assembled computers, not printed circuit boards, to sell to end users, not tinkerers. He was willing to pay $500 each on delivery.
The new company needed $15,000 of parts to fill the order. Atari would only sell the parts for cash up front.
A bank turned the two scruffy guys down for a loan and another computer parts store declined an equity stake in the new venture. “Finally Jobs was able to convince the manager of Cramer Electronics to call Paul Terrell to confirm that he had really committed to a $25,000 order,” Terrell confirmed it and then Jobs got the parts on 30 days credit.
When after 30 days the computers were delivered and paid for, “Apple was on the verge of being profitable.”
In January 1977, Apple was valued at $5,309. By the end of December 1980, it went public for $1.79 billion.”
For what it’s worth, their idea was so vague they likely would never have been approved for a KS project.
